


there you go, saving me

by farfromthstars



Series: eddie diaz week 2021 [3]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Eddie Diaz Week 2021, Eddie Diaz is good at his job, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, very light though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29823708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farfromthstars/pseuds/farfromthstars
Summary: things get a little hairy at a rescue, and eddie needs to do some quick thinking.-eddie diaz week day 3: “We’re getting out of this.” + competence
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: eddie diaz week 2021 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2188779
Comments: 27
Kudos: 177





	there you go, saving me

**Author's Note:**

> i can't believe this is my 11th 911 fic and this is the first time i've written about actual firefighting in detail 😂 google and a probably not always accurate show about fictional firefighters can only teach you so much, so i'm sure there are many inaccuracies in this - let's ignore it for the sake of fiction?

The woman is hysterical when Eddie gets to her, reaching for the window in panic, and he grabs her around the waist to haul her back. The last thing he needs is for her to burn herself on the hot handle or jump from the window in her despair.

She struggles against his hold and he calls through his mask, “I’m LAFD, ma’am, I’m here to get you out!”

She goes limp and starts sobbing instead, so Eddie grabs her by the shoulders to get her to look at him.

“Ma’am, I’m gonna get you out of here, but I need you to remain calm and listen to me at any point, okay? Can you do that?”

She stares at him but nods, pulling a scarf over her nose and mouth. Good, so she’s not completely helpless. Her panicked husband had told them she was pregnant, but Eddie wouldn’t be able to tell, so it must be early stages. 

“Can you stand by the door and wait for me there? I’ll come get you in a minute.”

She nods and walks towards the door. One side of the room is up in flames, but there’s still room to walk without getting too close to the fire. Still, he needs to get her out of here as quickly as possible, the fire has spread to every single room.

“This is Diaz,” he says into his radio, “I’ve got the mother and we’ll be making our way outside now. Is anyone else still in the house?”

“Copy you, Diaz,” Bobby’s voice comes through. “Everyone else has evacuated. Get out of there now, the structure is extremely unstable.”

“Copy that, Cap.”

He uses the axe to smash the window for ventilation, then runs back to the mother and pulls her through the door, pulling it shut behind them. Hopefully that’ll keep the smoke from suffocating the woman. 

He guides her towards the stairs, touching the doors they pass in search of hot zones. When they get to the wooden stairs, they’re already engulfed in flames, blocking their easiest way out. The woman starts shaking, clinging to Eddie as he tries to think. They’re only on the second floor, but a jump is still too dangerous for both of them, especially her without training or protective gear. The stairs are out and he’s worried about the integrity of the floor knowing how badly the fire was raging downstairs earlier. 

“Cap,” he radios again. “Stairs are out. Looking for another way out now.”

“Copy that, Eddie. Make it quick.”

The ladder truck is on the wrong side of the house, trained at the worst of the fire to hose it, but they can’t go out that way anymore. He’s seen the floor in those rooms, no way will it be able to hold them both long enough for the ladder to get close enough to the house to get them out of the window. He’s gonna have to find another way. 

“We’re getting out of this,” he promises her. “But I’ll need your help. What’s your name?”

“Michelle.”

“Okay, Michelle, I’m Eddie. Can you tell me if there is a window looking out over your garage?”

Buck was the one who checked that room earlier before he rushed downstairs with two small children in his arms. Safe and sound, thankfully.

She hesitates for a moment but then nods, pointing towards the door. 

Eddie shields her from the heat as well as he can as they make their way over there and holds her back, pressing his gloved hand to the door. Satisfied that it’s safe to open he does so, checking the room for dangers before letting Michelle follow him inside. There’s water everywhere, and the fire is out, but he steps very carefully, testing the floor in front of him with his pry bar. They get to the window without incidents and he looks outside, the roof of the garage roughly eight feet below them. It’s a drop and the roof is sloping so there’s the danger of sliding further, but it’s much less than from any other window. 

“Cap, we’re taking the window over the garage. Any help you can get me would be appreciated.”

There’s no response, just static, and Eddie bites back a curse. Great, so he’s gonna do this on his own. The floor beneath his heavy boots feels soggy and he doesn’t know how long they have before it gives out, so he grabs Michelle by the elbow and looks out the window again, checking to see if he can signal anyone downstairs. But they must all be at the front of the house, he doesn’t spot anyone. 

“Okay, Michelle, looks like we’re on our own,” he says, “but that’s okay. All you need to do is trust me and I will get you back to your family, alright?”

She nods, eyes wide but much calmer now that there’s no visible fire. Eddie is glad she doesn’t know about the danger they’re still in and he definitely won’t tell her, needs her as calm as possible for this to work.

“Alright, so this will sound scary, but it’s our best chance. I’ve got a rope with me that I will secure somewhere in this room and that we’ll use to climb down onto the roof of the garage. From there, we’ll be able to get down pretty easily hopefully. You don’t have to do anything but hold on to me as tight as you can and let go when I tell you to, alright?”

Another nod.

Eddie’s only possibility to secure the rope are the ceiling beams, and he desperately hopes they’re as stable as they look, because the floor has started making noises he really doesn’t like. Quickly, he ties the rope around the pry bar and throws it with measured strength. It knocks into the ceiling anyway but thankfully falls back down on the other side of the beam as planned. He catches the pry bar and unties the rope, making a secure knot before tying it around his waist and then around Michelle. It should still be long enough to get them to the highest part of the roof at least.

He instructs Michelle to wrap her arms around his shoulders and hold onto him, then swings them onto the windowsill before pushing off it with one hand on the rope and the other on the windowsill to control their fall.

The muscles in his arm pull but he manages to keep them from dropping. For a second, they dangle right outside the window until Michelle wraps her legs round him and he lets go of the window, both hands on the rope now before he starts letting it slide through his hands, lowering them slowly down onto the roof. 

His feet touch down first and he slowly keeps sliding until the rope is at its end. They’re barely in the middle of the roof and he doesn’t want to tell Michelle to jump, especially not in her state.

“Okay, Michelle,” he says calmly. “Almost there. This next bit might be a bit scary, but I promise to keep you safe. I need you to hold on to me even tighter while I untie the rope from around you, okay? I promise I won’t let you fall, but we need more length to get to the edge of the roof.”

“I trust you,” she says, and her arms around his shoulders tighten. 

He unties her and then loosens the knot around his own waist until the rope starts sliding, letting them move down the roof, Eddie on his backside with Michelle in his lap. His boots hit the rain gutter just as the rope reaches its end again and he quickly fastens it around his waist.

They’re still on their own and Eddie tries his radio again, then calls out for help without it, but he knows how unlikely it is for anyone to hear him over all the noise from the fire and hoses and shouts of command. He wishes there was a way to let them all know they’re out of the house and as good as safe.

“Well,” he says to Michelle, “guess it’s still just us. Do you think you’ll be able to climb down and hang from the gutter if I hold your arms? Then I could let you down as far as possible and you’d only have a foot or so to jump. We can keep sitting here as well, but I’m not sure how stable the house is and I’d rather get you as far away from it as possible in case it collapses. And my coworkers still think we’re in there, so it’d be great to let them know we’re good so none of them do anything stupid.”

She actually smiles a little at that. “Are any of them likely to?”

“My boyfriend is,” Eddie says with a smile of his own. “Though it’s only ever to save people.”

“Especially if it’s you, I imagine,” she says. “Alright then, yeah, let’s give it a try.”

Together, they get her on her knees at the edge of the roof and Eddie holds on to her as she slowly inches backwards, one foot first to brace against the garage door like Eddie instructs her. He has to lie flat on his stomach to be able to reach her like this and prays for the rope and the ceiling beam to hold.

Fingers white around the rain gutter, Michelle finally swings free while Eddie grips her upper arms.

“I’ve got you,” he pants and feels the gutter dig into his upper arms. “Now let go, I’ll let you slide down as far as we can reach.”

She does and he hears her and himself hiss as her entire weight is suddenly in his hands. He loosens his grip enough for her arms to slide through his hands inch by inch until her hands cling to his.

“Can you see how far it is to the ground?” he calls out to her. He really hopes he calculated this right because there is no way he can pull her back up like this, not with the angle his arms are bent over the edge of the roof.

“I can do it,” she answers, but her voice is shaking.

“Eddie!” Buck’s voice is always one of Eddie’s favourite sounds, but right now he could actually cry hearing it.

“Buck!” he calls back and then he sees him, right there below them, wrapping strong arms around Michelle.

“I’ve got her, you can let go!”

Eddie does, groaning at the pain in his arms and sits up quickly, releasing the strain on the rope. Below him, he can hear Buck radioing that he’s got them and they’re fine, and then he starts checking on Michelle.

“I’m fine,” she says, “Eddie saved me.”

“She needs to be checked for smoke inhalation!” Eddie calls down to them, fingers fumbling with the knot around his waist. It’s pulled tight, cutting into his middle painfully now, even through his turnout coat. “Get her to Hen as quickly as possible!”

“I’m here already,” Hen’s voice rings out. “You just focus on getting down there now, Eddie.”

“You good, Eds?” Buck asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie groans. “Just having some trouble with this knot, but I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine. I’m coming up there!”

“No,” Eddie says, finally making headway and loosening the rope enough so he can breathe again. “I’ve got it Buck, stop worrying.”

“Are you the boyfriend?” Michelle asks.

“When did you have time to talk about that?”

Eddie can hear the eyeroll in Hen’s voice when she says, “You know he talks about you any chance he gets, Buck.”

Buck’s smile is just as easy to picture, and Eddie unties himself all the way, then swings himself down over the edge of the roof, jumping the last few feet easily.

Buck is on him within a second, tugging the helmet off his head, hands fluttering over his face and body as if he wants to check everything at once and isn’t sure if he can touch.

“I’m fine, Buck,” he assures his boyfriend quietly, and Buck’s face crumbles at that. He stumbles forward and wraps his arms around Eddie, buries his face against his neck. Eddie holds him, ignoring the ache where he will definitely bruise on his arms and around his middle for now.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” he says against Eddie’s skin, pressing kisses to any part of Eddie he can reach.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says with a squeeze to the back of Buck’s neck before he kisses his mouth quickly, just to reassure them both. “My radio wasn’t supposed to break.”

Buck doesn’t let go of his hand as he leads him to the ambulance to get checked over, not when Bobby claps his shoulder and says, “good job, firefighter Diaz,”, not when they see Michelle reunite with her family, not when the roof of the house finally collapses, the structure too damaged from fire and water to hold up.

Eddie lets him, knows all too well what it’s like to be the one waiting outside, scared to death for the man he loves. But he also knows that they’re both good at what they do, and that they’ll both always do everything they can to make it back out. It’s all they can do.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! let me know what you thought or if I missed any tags/triggers and come talk to me on [tumblr](https://buckactuallys.tumblr.com/)?


End file.
